


so It goes...

by gutwenching



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Attempted Murder, Bisexual main character, Blood and Gore, Bonding With Pennywise, Character Development, Disturbing Themes, Eventual Smut, F/M, Food Offerings To Pennywise, Horror, Mentally ill main character, Murder, Other, Pennywise is His Own Warning (IT), Revenge, Size Difference, well... eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:26:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24242020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gutwenching/pseuds/gutwenching
Summary: There was something dark hidden in the small town of Derry, Maine. Something that shrouded under the darkness of fake smiles from depressed housewives, behind a child’s muffled cries, under a neighbor’s watchful but blissfully blind eye. Something that thrived on the pain of broken hearts and empty promises.And then, of course, there was the thing that resided in the sewers of Derry.Being an orphan isn’t the worst part. What is the worst part, is the unfair, wicked way of how she became an orphan. If only there was someone who could help her avenge her parents.
Relationships: Pennywise (IT)/Original Female Character(s), Pennywise (IT)/Reader
Comments: 13
Kudos: 66





	1. Prologue: The Shift

**Author's Note:**

> This story is inspired by the amazing pennywife! She's written the story I Will Be Brutal here AO3 which you should definitely check out if you haven't already, along with her other amazing work.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not know that much about foster care, and especially not about how it goes in America, where the story takes place. Everything you read here I either have from the internet or from some of my American friends, who are not! experts when it comes to foster care. I do my best to portray it respectfully and as realistically as I think I know it to be. Any fault you find is my own.

There was something dark hidden in the small town of Derry, Maine. Something that shrouded under the darkness of fake smiles from depressed housewives, behind a child’s muffled cries, under a neighbor’s watchful but blissfully blind eye. Something that thrived on the pain of broken hearts and empty promises.

And then, of course, there was the thing that resided in the sewers of Derry.

Tales of an evil creature taunting the town had spread through Derry like wildfire since long before Fran Snell was born, as it went on whilst little Fran went through the perils of life. As it would go on for long after her, too. 

Teenagers would scare their friends with rumors of killer clowns and zombies hunting for children’s meat, laughing around a bonfire while trying to see who would get the most scared. adults, and especially parents avoided the topic as much as they could, and when they were asked about it by a curious, wide eyed child, they claimed it was just a story to scare kids.

One elderly lady named Georgina claimed she had barely escaped the monster’s claws.

  
“He nearly had me,” she’d say when the kids would ask. “He was so close I could feel him breathing down my neck, as big and as fast as a bear. It attacked me over at the park. Don’t ever go there after dark, not without your friends to protect you!”

  
The children would let out nervous giggles and call her the town’s looney behind her back, but Georgina saw what she saw and felt what she felt. She did her part warning the kids, even if they did not believe her.

Some townsfolk claimed the Devil himself used Derry as an easy portal to make his way down to the flaming abyss. Many deemed the town to be cursed in one way or another, but only a handful of people actually left. It was something they simply dealt with, as if it was a given, and there was nothing to be done about it. So it went with a lot of things in Derry.

Unlike many people in Derry, Fran Snell had thought about leaving the small town in the state of Maine an awful lot. She dreamt of big, far away cities and the liberty to do whatever she pleased as soon as she was able to think on her own. But dreams were just dreams, and the restrictions of grownups were very much real. As she grew older, she realized that grownups were not the only problem standing in her way. Money played a big part, as did having a real purpose.

While she too grew up listening to the stories of evil creatures lurking in the dark – _just the one_ , she had heard someone say _. It’s only_ one _creature_ – it was not her reason for wanting to get out of town as soon as possible. No, her reasons had everything to do with the sense of loneliness she felt whenever she looked around and the reality of her situation sunk in on her. Most of the time, she could banish it to be just a vague nagging in the back of her head as she put one foot in front of the other and walked on. But on her darkest of days, her shoes felt like they were made of concrete.

Of course, she was not the only one who grew up in the system. Hell, the foster home she stayed in for the first 18 years of her life proved that much. Growing up without parents happened to a lot of children. She was far from the only one who grew up in the system and got passed around from family to family for state funded health care and a juicy, monthly subsidy. Knowing she was not alone didn’t make her feel less alone, though. Growing up with other parent-less children and not a moment of rest left her ears ringing with deafening solitude. Others told her she should be grateful she had a home to begin with, and she was.

But there was something so undeniably unfair about the way in which she became an orphan.

To be the odd one out was a very desolate feeling. There was something not quite right with her, the kids at school would whisper. She never said the right things and laughed when no one else did. She sat in utter silence when the others all laughed. She looked at girls and boys the same way but sometimes her eyes betrayed nothing at all. Her hair was an awkward in between shade and her bangs fell a little too far over her eyes. Her nose bent to the side in a strange way. Her eyes were a little too far apart. She didn’t belong.

And they talked about her, oh, how they talked about her.

“Look,” they would whisper when they thought she wasn’t listening. “She’s the one from Jackson street. You know what happened on Jackson street.”

And everyone did know what happened on Jackson street. The children in her class had heard their parents mention it in pity, and the teachers would slyly gossip about her in empty hallways. They all studied her like some kind of zoo animal, laying still behind plexiglass, as if they were expecting her to do something.

 _Any moment now,_ they wordlessly whispered inside of her head. _Any moment now, and then…_

And then? Fran wanted to ask so badly. And then what should I do? 

  
The sense of solitude grew stronger with every passing day.

Over the years, the children she once knew slowly grew into teenagers when high school came around. Derry was not a big town, and so her classmates stayed perfectly the same. Homes also came and went, over the years. Fran never dreamt of finding a forever home like some of the children she had shared rooms with. After all, she used to have one. A perfectly decent family with a father and a mother and a house with a paid off mortgage, a cat and a big backyard. They were taken from her.

The library was one thing that always stayed constant. The distinct smell of paper that came from the old books and the familiar smile of the elderly librarian made her feel at ease. Like she _belonged_. It was a place where she felt the weight pressing down on her shoulders become pounds lighter.  
The library was small in scale, and usually either empty or littered with a few middle schoolers. They never looked at her funny, or with a knowing glance she had grown all too accustomed too. Even if they knew her by name, they didn’t recognize her by face.

In the comfortable silence the library provided, she read and read, all the way through the horror genre – her favorite author was this woman named S. Queen, who could make even the most regular of things feel scary – and then the thrillers, and when she was done with that, she even made her way through the detectives. The empty, nagging hole of loneliness ate itself bigger the closer she got to finishing all the books. Unable to let it swallow yet another part of her, she, with the holiest of intentions, made her way through the Derry history section. It was there where her desire to leave turned into something twisted and much more dark.

Fran had started calling it The Shift, because she could feel it, crawling inside of her skin with sharp nails and blinking teeth, growing more and more each day. It wanted to fight itself out of her and tear her skin open, break her bones apart in the process. It was so incredibly angry.

Where love had people see everything through rose tinted glasses, The Shift had given Fran a new perspective too. Paintings that had been in the library for as long she could remember suddenly started to make sense, as if they had been blurry to her before. The portrait of the old well, the one hanging calmly next to the isle containing the history books, depicted a young woman sacrificing her baby, slowly lowering her into the depthless space. 

In her very first summer as an adult and a high school graduate, things got very strange very quickly. 

It caught her eye on the way back to the small, shabby apartment she could now call home, from her weekly grocery shopping trip. Her feet slowed down in front of the old, no longer in use telephone pole. It had been completely covered in staples.

“What is it, hun?” Molly, a staff member from the foster home who would occasionally check up on ex-foster children asked from behind her shoulder.

“The staples,” Fran replied. “There’s so many.”

So many missing children posters…

“Don’t you worry your pretty head about that, hun,” Molly reassured her, tightening her grip onto the grocery bags. “As long as it’s not you, right?”

Molly’s laid back response took Fran aback, especially from a woman she knew to be loving. A woman whose job it was to provide care for children who couldn’t get it anywhere else.

“It’s odd,” Fran tried again. “So many missing children and no one is looking for them.”

“It is odd,” Molly agreed. “But that’s all it is. Come, I don’t want this mince to defrost out here in the heat.”

After that, the posters doubled in quantity, and parents let their missing children go with ease, like they were nothing more than a lost set of keys. It was something they dealt with, as if it was a given, and there was nothing to be done about it.

The more research she did on the history of Derry, the more everything started to fall into place. She scavenged through the same books countless of times, reading between the lines like her life depended on it. And in a way, it did.

Her obsession with the sewer creature had become borderline dangerous, and even though Fran was aware of it, it didn’t stop her from giving into the unhealthy habit.  
She observed it like one would observe a newly discovered species, writing down it’s behavior, it’s habits and everything else she could find out about it. Where environmental circumstances normally influenced a being, this being was powerful enough to have it the other way around. There had to be a reason why the adults got a glazy look over their eyes and kids disappeared in masses. She should be nauseous with fear after everything she found out about the creature, but instead, it backfired. It only drove the flickering flame inside of her to heat up and grow bigger, the flames licking the corners of a beginning idea in her mind.

* * *

  
Despite every warning Georgina had given her and every other child of her age, or perhaps because of it, Fran found herself standing in the empty park in the middle of the night. A cold dread clawed it’s way up her legs as she stood there, alone and completely vulnerable. If anyone or anything was out to get her tonight, she had given them the perfect opportunity to strike. In utter silence, she listened for any noise that might’ve been a dead giveaway for anything that did not belong there.

“Hello?” her voice sounded a lot more stable than she felt. “I know you’re out there, you know.”

At the sound of her own voice surrounded by sheer silence, she could feel dejection seeping heavily into her shoes, discouragement rooting her to the spot. If it didn’t want to speak with her, she didn’t know what there was left for her to do.

“If… If you would tell me your name, I could just call you by your name,” Nothing still. Of course. It wasn’t like Father Christmas, it didn’t have the ability to be in separate locations at the same time. At least, she couldn’t find anything like that when she read up on the creature.

“I know you’re scary and all,” she tried again, tilting her head to look around her. The park was empty and as still as it ever was. A swing swayed calmly in the surprisingly cool summer breeze. “But I also know you’re not stupid. And I’d just like to talk to you.”

It might not be stupid, but she certainly felt like she was. Although she was very certain it existed and could perhaps even be listening to her desperate pleas, she had never felt more idiotic, speaking out loud to an unresponsive darkness.

“I won’t hurt you, if that’s what you think,” she swore she could hear a stifled laugh before the words had left her, and perhaps she had even heard bells, but it was gone as quick as it came. Remnants of it rang in her brain so loud, she convinced herself it was her mind playing tricks on her.

“Come on,” she mumbled under her breath, frustration dripped from her voice. Her frustration didn’t bother the being, if it was even there. Still only empty silence greeted her.

“If you’re here,” she’d try for just one more time, she told herself. “And you’d like to eat me, now is the perfect time. So just come out and do it, you big, bad sewer monster. Show yourself!”

All that broke the deafening silence was her own breathing, now heavy with defeat. Fuck, she sounded like a shitty horror movie.

“Give me a sign. Anything!”

Nothing.

She stood there for a seemingly lasting eternity, half expecting it to jump out any moment now. Nothing. Everlasting nothing.

Tears stung hotly in her eyes on the walk home. She felt angry with herself as well as with the creature. How stupid was it of her to think it would just show itself to her? Even with herself as bait, Derry was not the smallest town around. The creature could be literally anywhere.

Perhaps it was feeding on a snack far more delicious than her, right then and there, while she stood in the park and screamed at the sky like a fucking idiot.

Blinded by the unfallen tears in her eyes, she didn’t notice the little, red and white thing laying on her doorstep until she stepped on top of it. Her sniffles ceased in confusion as she bent over to take a better look at the thing. She turned the odd thing over between her fingers, noticing it’s smooth texture and it’s pointy nature. With a start, realization overtook her surprise.

It was a bloody tooth.


	2. Of Inexpensive Necklaces And Paying The Price

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Here, piggy, piggy, piggy,” Billy’s voice bounces off the walls with an eagerness that makes her sick to her stomach.
> 
> What the fuck is wrong with this guy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: references to previous sexual assault. Also, heavy misogyny. The things stated here are NOT a reflection of my own views.

The tooth doesn’t belong to any animal she knows. It’s too pointy to be of a dog and too big to belong to any snake that resides in Maine. Knowing this doesn’t stop Fran from second guessing herself and browsing the internet endlessly for a potential match. Everything she has discovered in the past few years, and all the strange things that have happened in the little town since summer started is more than enough proof that _something_ is plaguing Derry, and yet…

She doesn’t doubt the shapeshifting sewer creature much. It’s herself she doubts.   
She’s been convinced things were real before when they weren’t.

This time, it somehow feels different, though. Her delusions never stay with her for much longer than a few weeks, and this time around, it’s been years. She can’t be wrong about this, so her uncertainty has to stem from somewhere else.  
She’s terrified.

“Who wouldn’t be, though?” she questions her identical twin in the mirror, adjusting the newly acquired necklace around her neck. It’s not much more than a spare shoelace with the tooth she found dangling from it. It’s a reminder of how real exactly this thing is. “It’s only a sewer monster that has an appetite for children.”

The reflection stares back at her with tired, deep set eyes. Sarcasm helps to deflect her fear, but only for a little while. This is some serious shit. Once she’s able to contact the monster, she has to be able to stand her ground, for her parents sake. Goosebumps rise on her bare arms thinking about contacting the creature. But if it wasn’t at least willing to hear her out, it would have never left it’s “gift” for her, would it?

A few weeks had passed since her first (failed) attempt at making contact with the eldritch creature. Turns out screaming at the top of your lungs only works in the movies. A few weeks passed before a different plan formulated in her head. It took another few weeks to come to terms with the wickedness of it. Her back up plan is vile, perhaps even borderline evil. But justice is something she would do anything for. Even if it meant…

The shrill ringing of her doorbell puts an abrupt stop to the train of thought thundering through her mind. Dread pools heavy at the bottom of her stomach as she sends her reflection one last one-over. Her back up plan has arrived.

* * *

“Cig?” he asks. 

“Nah,” she rejects Billy’s outstretched hand and inquiring gaze. After an outstretched silence, she adds a hesitant “thanks, though.”

Agonizingly slow, he pulls his hand back, refusing to take his eyes off her. Then, he lights the cigarette he offered her and blows the smoke her way.

“’s all good, Fran,” he sends her a lazy smile, his crooked, yellowed teeth reflected by the dim moonlight. “That means more for me. These things cost me an arm and a leg.”

The laugh that follows up his words is dry and humorless, selfish and treacherous, fitting for a small town man, a _boy_ , who has never felt the need to look beyond what is in front of him.

A soft rustle of fabric hailing from Billy who’s stretching out his long limbs drags her attention back to the man on the little, blue blanket under the starry night sky beside her. He drapes his arm around her neck and bares his teeth to her in a condescending sneer disguised as a friendly smile.

She can smell the cigarette smoke mixed with the meaty smell of the burger he ate earlier on his breath because of how close he is to her. The years of smoking have taken it’s toll on his teeth, the brown staining evident now that he so openly leers at her. Sweat drips down his oily face. She internally recoils.

“Y’know,” Billy starts, his voice all smooth like he’s done this a hundred times before. He probably has done this a hundred times before, Fran realizes. “Although I do enjoy talking to you and all, I have to ask you why you brought me all the way out here. It couldn’t all have been for a dumb midnight picnic.”

Fran turns to face him, skin smooth and hair shiny under the cool moonlight. The bangs that usually hang unevenly over her eyes are pinned back now, and although her eyes are freakishly too far apart, it brings the color of them out. 

It’s a nice change of pace to see that the quiet girl he knows from high school has actually put effort in the way she looks. She’s covered up her imperfections with some makeup and her chest is clad in a crop top that revealed just a bit too much of her skin. If it wasn’t him with her here right now, he would’ve called her a slut. Hell, he might still do it after he’s through with her. If she lets him smash tonight, she’s a confirmed slut. 

A grin breaks through Billy’s features when he thinks about fucking her. No doubt he’ll be the first one to do so. He knows every guy who has ever tried fooling around with her, and they all got the cold shoulder. And now, here he was at the Barrens in the middle of the night with condoms in his pocket, ready to nail the most mousy girl he knows.

Fran is the quiet type, the type other girls compose character traits for because she barely speaks. She has never felt the need to correct the rumors her classmates made up about her back in high school. She’s the easiest target imaginable.

Billy has always been one of the guys. During high school, he didn’t care for girlish squabbles, unless it got him closer to getting in a popular girl’s pants. Sure, he’s spewed some rumors about Fran Snell. 

_Hey, see that girl over there? She’s in my class. She’s batshit insane. Stuffed tampons up her nose because she thought a nosebleed was her period once, I heard. No, yeah, really! What a fuckin’ weirdo, am I right?_

But there’s nothing wrong with a little self-serving deprecation, is there? It’s not like Billy says any of that stuff to her face. Not like she knows the girls used to call her Fran Smell behind her back. She doesn’t know and he doesn’t really mean the shit he’s said about her. It all works out perfectly in the end.

He turns his attention back to her when he notices she’s trying to say something.

“Let’s fuck,” the words catch him off guard as soon as they leave her mouth, the f dragged out and the k hard. Was this really same, innocent girl he knew back in high school? He lets an involuntary snort escape him. Alas, – he remembers that word from a Harry Potter movie he once half watched when he was trying to rail some other girl – he’s not one to protest when a piece of meat offers itself so willingly.

“I knew you were secretly a dirty little slut all along,” he grins, his fingers nifty and fast over, up, under her crop top, not bothering to ask for her consent.

“Wait,” Fran’s protest rings out loudly over the Kenduskeag river, the water carrying her words with it to the other side. With a strength he hasn’t had to use for a while, he places his hand over her mouth, reminded of last time. Fran’s eyes widen in panic, but Billy doesn’t look, doesn’t notice.  
With a fever she knows might make him angry, she bites in the palm of his hand. As if pulled out of a trance, he blinks a few times and then, finally, removes his hand from her mouth. 

“So you’re not into the kinky shit. Got it,” he grins while she catches her breath. He can feel her breasts rising and falling underneath the palm of his hand that is still on her chest. His grin widens.

“I had something different mind,” she announces, pushing down the anger racing through her chest. “I was thinking…”

Her lips nearly connect with his, her breath soft and sweet on his skin, that’s how close she is to him.

“You can chase me around the sewers.”

“What now?” he nervously laughs, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

“If I find you first, you can do whatever you want with me. But if I find you first, I can do whatever I want with you,” she bites her lip and bats her eyelashes at him. If it works in movies… “Unless you’re too chicken.”

“I’m not,” he protests instantly. Billy will not be bested by some stupid female. “We’ll do it. How bad can it be?”

She smiles sweetly.

“But you better make it worth my while.”

* * *

The sewer tunnels smell exactly like she imagined it would. A stink similar to that of rotten eggs infiltrates her airway and getting the smell out of her clothes is going to prove itself to be nearly impossible. Her shoes and socks are quickly soaked in the disgusting sewage she has been treading through since she convinced Billy to participate in her little “game.” The ruination of her clothes is the least of her worries, though. Billy is calling her name like it’s a prayer. The walls carry his voice easily through the dripping sewer tunnels, heightening her anxiety. He could be right around the corner, and she wouldn’t even know it. With a strictness one could only manage in a life or death type of situation, she wills her breathing to slow down to a steady pace.

“Here, piggy, piggy, piggy,” Billy’s voice bounces off the walls with an eagerness that makes her sick to her stomach.

What the fuck is wrong with this guy?

Cautiously, she pushes herself up against the wall, getting ready to run in case he gets closer to her. His footsteps echo through the tunnels, sloshing closer and closer through the water until…

“Fran?”

But his footsteps move away from her instead of getting nearer. Confusion takes over her anxiety. He must hear something. It just isn’t her.

“Billy…” her heart comes to an abrupt halt. That’s _her_ voice. But it’s not coming from her throat.

“Where are you?” Billy calls back to the imposter. Fran is rooted to the ground. This is it. “Little sluts need to be stuffed.”

This is it. This is it. This is it.

Oh, God.

Things start to happen very quickly.

“I’m over here,” it is her voice, the perfect copy. It has her stomach churning and her hands shaking, and, but, she knows it’s now or never.

“Fran? I… What the fuck! What the f-” she starts running towards the sound, which proves itself to not be as easy as she thinks it is, with the walls now echoing Billy’s gut-wrenching screams. The sounds of his screams nearly overpower the wet, eating sounds and bile rises in her throat, knowing she did this, knowing she could very well be next.

The screams get closer and then die out, but it doesn’t matter anymore. The source is right in front of her. The sewer creature doesn’t look like anything she could’ve dreamt up.

It’s a clown.  
It’s a clown twice her size with hair so orange it is the shade of the fruit. It’s crouched next to Billy’s body, what’s left of it at least, in a very cat-like sort of way. It’s grey suit is covered in blood she can only assume is Billy’s. Its skin is pale as the moon and slightly flaking off. It curls up its lip when it spots her, and it takes everything in her not to scream. Its plump, bottom lip is covered with so much red that she cannot tell if it’s supposed to be lipstick or if it’s Billy’s blood. The buckteeth of the being are too elongated to be human, as if everything else about it hadn’t been a clear indicator that it wasn’t human.  
The eldritch being is somewhat beautiful in the violent, disturbing kind of way. She supposes not many people would find beauty in violence.

“Little lambs should not wander in the wolf’s den,” when it speaks, it’s still using her voice. A shaky breath leaves her.

“I’m here for you. I brought him here for _you_.”

It moves from his crouched position up right, so sudden it makes her flinch. In its full height the clown is even taller than she originally thought. She has to crane her neck upwards to look at it.

“Ohhh… Pennywise knows all about youuu….” Like snow melting under a bright beam of sunlight, its voice has changed, now smooth like velvet and thick like syrup. It has to be the clown’s own voice.

“Pennywise? Is that your name?” she asks, gripping the fabric of her skirt tightly to stop her hands from shaking.

“Poor little orphan child,” it growls, ignoring her question like it’s nothing more than an annoying fly buzzing around its enormous head. “The lost, little lamb wants her revenge.”

“I’m not lost,” she protests. The being squints its eyes at her in anger, but that doesn’t stop Fran from speaking. “I came to see you. I need your help.”

“Pennywise does not help. Pennywise kills and feeds and then takes a long rest,” the being moves closer to her, but she stands her ground. At least it’s answering her question now. Somewhat.

“Please. I have a plan-“

It launches at her, but comes to a halt mere inches away from her face. She has involuntarily taken a step back, her back nearly hitting the wall of the sewer tunnel.

“Don’t insult me, little lamb. I can hunt for myself. I enjoy the hunt,” it laughs loudly and almost manic, right in her face. Blood splatters and saliva coat her face and the urge to wipe it all away is incredibly strong.

“I don’t doubt it,” she says, and she means it. A shaky breath escapes her. Fuck. All this time, she had thought it to be… stupid. Willing. Perhaps even _kind_. Hell, nearly every vampire movie has a vampire who feels bad about sucking the blood out of innocent humans. Is it so hopelessly naïve of her to think perhaps the sewer monster could be the same? That it would rather eat the villains than good people?

“I just thought…. I could make it easier,” she tries again.

“Like I said,” it says, through gritted teeth this time. Its eyes are a dangerous shade of tawny and it’s teeth seem to have elongated even more. “I enjoy the hunt.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” she lies, voice as steady as she can possibly keep it. It’s not very steady.

“Not afraid?” it feigns hurt, but she can practically hear it grin through the words. It mocks her, as if it doesn’t know, as if it can’t read her mind.

“Nooot afraiddd…” it repeats. “No… All the parentless little girl is afraid of, is eternal loneliness.” 

It doesn’t give her the time to respond, does not care for any response that could come from a mere human. Instead, it throws up dark walls around her vision, and she’s momentarily blinded by the pitch black. Her eyes are wide open and her pupils are dilated as far as they can go.  
While her eyes attempt to adjust to the darkness, panic overcomes her. It could attack her any second. Her heart beats wildly in her throat, fast and steady. Around her is nothing but deafening silence. All she can hear is soft rhythm of her own breathing, but even that sounds muffled. she stretches her hands out in front of her, and shuffles forward. Eventually, she must walk into something, some indicator of where she is and how to get out. She remembers the tunnel she is in, she saw it just now. The walls are not too far apart, she must be able to get to the other side…

Her hands glide past damp, empty air, and seconds seem to last a small eternity. The rotten egg smell has mixed with the metallic smell of blood, a confirmation that she is still in the tunnel, the being hasn’t transported her to somewhere else.

Thud.

Her foot has made contact with….

“Oh, God,” she whines. The darkness fades in mere seconds, and she looks right into the lifeless eyes of Billy. She swallows thickly, knowing his death is on her.

“The lost little lamb is not as tough as she thinks she is,” it’s right behind her, it has her trapped between Billy’s dead body and its own form. She turns around, unable to keep looking at the blood on her hands. A whimper escapes her when she realizes how close the clown creature is to her. Its gloved hand shoots out and wraps around her neck, so tight it makes her throat burn with the lack of oxygen.

“How can you live with yourself?” it hisses her own thoughts at her.

She refuses to answer out loud, knowing it somehow can read her mind anyway. It knows her answer. With her silence, its nails grow sharper and sharper into her neck until Fran is sure they’ve transformed into something much more horrific. Blood trickles down her neck hotly, and her vision goes blurry with the pressure it puts on her windpipe. It has her lifted in the air, feet kicking and hands clawing at its wrist.

Is this finally it, she wonders, staring into the unnatural amber shade of its eyes as the tears involuntarily roll down her cheeks. 

_Would it be so bad if it was?_

The fight leaves her. She feels so tired. So very tired. It’s all okay. She will be with her family soon.

Right when her hearing threatens to abandon her, it throws her to the ground. Frantically, she sputters for air as she crawls away from the being on all fours.

Oh, God, it wants to toy with her before it eats her, it’s going to-

“Run, little lamb. Run far away before I change my mind about you, orphan!”

She doesn’t hesitate.

With spotty vision and her breathing hitching in her throat, she runs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Billy is a piece of shit, but it was fun to write him. Especially when he used "alas" wrong and put condoms in his pocket. It gave me that buzz.


	3. The Valley of the Living Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Fran?” 
> 
> Oh, great. Just fucking fantastic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not super happy with the way this chapter turned out, but the reason for this might be because it's more a filler chapter. It's focused on Fran as a person and a new character gets introduced! I hope it is enjoyable regardless <3

“Fuck,” her voice is nothing more than a hoarse, angry hiss as she pulls the bloody paper napkin from her neck.

How the hell did she fall asleep after what happened?

The body length mirror across from her bed tells her she is still covered in Billy’s blood, mixed with that of her own. The monster really did a number on her. Her throat is so horrendously sore, no throat infection she has ever had could compare to the grating pain shooting through her swollen throat when she gulps down her own bloody, thick saliva. No mint and honey tea is going to fix it anytime soon, she thinks, as she drags her mangled body over to the mirror.

Up close, she looks even worse. Her hair is plastered to her face in sticky, blood covered strands. While she was asleep – how long had she slept? Minutes? Hours? – her hair became hard and dry. Fresh blood trickles down her nose, over bruised lip and down to her neck in a snail pace. When she sighs, her entire chest hurts. Her neck, also covered in blood, is swollen in a pink, red, purple swirl of bruises. The angry wounds the clown’s nails left behind when it grabbed her by the neck are now scabbing over. By the looks of it, at the first wrong move the bleeding will start again. 

She turns away from the mirror and drags her aching body to the bathroom. She has seen enough. She is hurt, but nothing that can’t be fixed. As fast as the tender muscles in her arms allow her, she removes yesterday’s top. There isn’t much left of it, the top is only a few scraps of fabric held together by a few threads and blood that keeps it snuggly tight to her body. It smells like iron and sewer water. After the sewer creature let her go, she ran and ran. Didn’t collapse until she was sure it wasn’t chasing her. Her lungs ached from a lack of oxygen and she felt like she could pass out any second. The fear and adrenaline coursing through her body kept her mind going until she made it home safe, though. It is amazing what a human body is capable of in extreme distress, Fran realizes. She wonders if her parents went through the same type of adrenaline rush, that day.

A defeated sigh leaves her bruised lips when she makes eye contact with her reflection once again. Billy is dead and that is on her. She premeditatedly murdered him, first degree. A nagging, heavy fear of getting caught forms in the bottom of her belly. Billy was older than the other kids that had gone missing since summer started, so would the cops still turn a blind eye? She half expects them to, but the clown might be so pissed at her that he sends the DPD running helter-skelter her way. But then again, back in the sewers it let her go. That must mean something, right? If it really wanted her gone, it could’ve taken care of it right then and there.

She carefully drags a cold, wet washcloth over her face, gritting her teeth to handle the sharp sting of her wounds. The white fabric quickly turns red, and her mind drifts back to the clown. She got away with her life, but her plan B failed miserably. The eldritch being confirmed her suspicions, though. It is nothing like any human or any animal originating from earth. It can do more than any fiction writer is able to even think up. It spoke her thoughts out loud and mimicked her voice perfectly. If she’s to believe the stories circling the town of Derry, it is able to shapeshift as well. Not to mention its incredible strength. It lifted her off the floor like she weighed nothing more than a feather drifting through the wind. Billy’s remains were torn apart, his legs no longer attaches to his body… Nausea didn’t fill her senses when she saw it, but now, thinking back on it, bile rises in the back of her throat.

The washcloth makes its path down her neck, and a pained hiss escapes from in between her gritted teeth. The marks are angry and red, and Fran wonders if the clown’s claws gave her an infection.

“Shit,” she says out loud with a trembling voice, fear sneaking up on her and then, without a warning, completely engulfing her senses. The washcloth shakes between her fingers and despite her aching chest, her breathing speeds up. With no health insurance, she’s completely screwed if the gashes the clown’s talons left in her neck start to infect. 

“This fucking clown.”

* * *

Weird looks thrown over strangers’ shoulders make the thick scarf around her neck feel even more itchy than it already is. Wearing a scarf in the middle of summer is all she can do not to raise suspicion. If anyone asks about her scarf, she has the sore throat to back up her made-up throat infection story. How could she possibly explain the four stab wounds on the left side of her neck?

The only pharmacy Derry has is surprisingly empty for a Saturday afternoon, but the last thing on her mind is to complain about it. She scavenges through the isles as fast as her shopping list allows, collecting rubbing alcohol as she goes, then cotton pads, antibiotic ointment, bandages, cough drops…

“Fran?” 

Oh, great. Just fucking fantastic.

She spins around on the heels of her worn-out sneakers to face the curly haired, bright eyed boy who called her name seconds earlier. 

“Kevin,” she greets him with a wave and a smile, hiding her shopping basket behind her back. Kevin and she used to go to the same high school, though he was a year older than her. He eventually went to university in Bangor to get a nursing degree. He is probably back in Derry to spend the summer with his family, she realizes.

“How have you been? Finally done with high school?” he asks with a kind smile she hasn’t seen in over a year. A warm, familiar feeling spreads through her abdomen at seeing it again. She nods, then pulls at her scarf to explain her silence.

“Sorry. Sore throat.”

“What happened to your neck?!” he gasps, her apology falling on deaf ears. With her urgent stomping through the pharmacy, her scarf must’ve gotten looser without her noticing. The little pull on the fabric caused it to unravel completely. She could groan in frustration at her own stupidity.

“It’s a long story,” is all that she offers him. The air is tense between them, but then he nods, and the look in his eyes tells her that he will not be forcing answers out of her. Kevin knows she has always been the quiet, troubled child. Now, she is no longer a child, but she is troubled all the same.

“You need to clean that,” he offers her his long overdue advice as she pulls the scarf tighter around her neck. 

She nods, and sheepishly reveals the shopping basket from behind her back. His eyes scan over the products she’s gathered, and worry threatens to overshadow his face.

“Do you know how to properly bandage that up?” he questions her, looking from the basket back at her. “You’re not supposed to use rubbing alcohol.”

“I’ll figure it out,” she claims in a hoarse whisper. The corners of his mouth rise in a soft smile.

“I could help,” he offers. “If you want. It looks pretty nasty.” 

“I don’t have any money,” she replies. 

“What are friends for, Fran?” friend is not a word she likes to use lightly, and especially not for a boy she hasn’t heard from in months. But he offers to help her now and she can use all the help she can get. Kevin, who clearly doesn’t like taking no for an answer, takes her shopping basket from her and walks back to the isle where she got the rubbing alcohol.

“You coming? These products aren’t going to get themselves, you know.”

* * *

If Kevin notices how her apartment is in the bad part of town, he doesn’t comment on it. If he notices how the wallpaper is sloppily applied to the walls of her small apartment, like she could leave any day now, he doesn’t say a thing. If he notices how her furniture is thrifted together, he stays quiet.

“Is it very painful?” he asks her when he’s sat her down on one of the mismatched dining chairs.

“A bit,” she admits. When the clown’s claws broke her skin, it felt like fire was pouring out of her. Any pain compared to that is mild.

“Lucky they missed your external carotid artery,” he mumbles with his freshly washed hands on her neck, more to himself than to her. “These are very specific marks. Almost like…”

He stops talking when he catches sight of her tightly pressed together lips.

“Sorry. No questions,” he apologizes, raising his hands up defensively in the air. Then, he spreads the contents of the plastic pharmacy bag out over her diner table.

“I assume you’ve rinsed out the wounds with water already?” she nods. From the pile of scattered items, he pulls out gauze pads and saline.

“This might sting,” he comments before wiping the four marks with the gauze. It stings, but it isn’t as bad as when she got the wounds.

“I’m glad it doesn’t need stitches,” he says while applying the antibiotic ointment. She nods for a second time, careful to not disturb his work. Kevin knows of her situation; the foster home and the way it works. She doesn’t have to tell him she can’t afford health insurance for him to know that she can’t.

With a steady hand, he applies plasters over every single claw mark.

“I’m no higher power, but that should heal it up pretty nicely,” he says, a wide grin on his face. Her soft laugh comes out as a hoarse cough.

“I think whoever has you as their nurse is in very capable hands,” Fran tells him, looking at the strategically placed plasters on her neck in the reflection of the mirror hanging above her sofa.

“Would you like something to eat?” she asks, remembering the manners the foster home drilled into her.

When she turns around, he is right there, and her heart jumps in her chest, unwanted thoughts of the previous day flooding back into her mind.

“I can’t ask that of you. You need your rest,” his eyes travel down her body, but so very unlike Billy’s did not even twenty-four hours prior. “You’re wobbling on your feet. Get some rest.” 

“I feel fine,” she protests, just to do so. Her eyelids feel like they’re made of steel and nausea has been playing at the back of her throat for hours now. Kevin playfully rolls his eyes.

“I’m protecting you from yourself by leaving,” he claims, shrugging on his jacket. A smile breaks through on her face, one she can’t stop from surfacing no matter how hard she tries.

“Fine, I’ll listen to you. Just this one.”

“Just this once,” he agrees. With his hands stuffed deep into his pockets, he shoots her a last glance.

“I know you said…” he starts, then falters. Then tries again: “I know you don’t want to tell me what happened, but if you’re ever in trouble…”

The meaning of his words hang thick and heavy between them, and a lump forms in her sore throat. She can’t remember the last time someone showed her genuine concern and kindness.

“Just be careful, okay Fran? I’d hate to see something happen to you.”

“Yes.”

Kevin smiles again, all friendliness and white teeth. She absentmindedly wonders what he has to smile about so much.

“Okay. I’ll see you around.”

“See ya,” with the door closed behind him, she finally allows herself to breathe again. Kevin is nice, but he could never understand. Her cross to carry is exactly that – hers. Her pain to bear, her mess to take care of. Her problem to find a solution for. And so far, she is failing miserably.

She moves back to her dinner table, where the materials he used still lay, scattered like her thoughts. Before she has the chance to sit down, the bell rings. Probably Kevin who has forgotten something, she gathers. The wooden door is heavy when she opens it. 

“Did you forge- “

But it’s not Kevin. Dripping with rain on her thrifted ‘WELCOME HOME’ doormat stands the seven feet tall sewer clown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kevin is not a main character, more a supporting character. He will definitely not be in every chapter but he will make rare appearances. I know people don't always like it when original characters get introduced, so I keep him small. Any thoughts on him?
> 
> Next chapter will be all Pennywise and Fran !!
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr if you like: @/terror-slut


	4. What's The Worst That Can Happen To a Girl Who's Already Hurt?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It smiles again, in its own vile and arrogant way. Its head is slightly cocked to the side, watching her squirm with an animalistic, predatory gaze. It's toying with her. 
> 
> “Yes. You know.”

The eldritch clown has been sitting on one of her mismatched dining chairs for a good fifteen minutes now, not speaking a word. The slits that pass as eyebrows above its eyes are knitted together, the being emerged in its own thoughts. She wonders if it's pondering if it should kill her or take her up on the offer she made It just a day prior. On the chair next to it, she sits quietly, fear and curiosity rushing through her veins. Seeing the seven-foot-tall predator perched on a chair of human proportions would've made her laugh if It didn't make her so damn nervous. The silence between them feels thick and loaded, and a shaky breath escapes her. She's rarely nervous, but then again, she rarely faces something like... It.   
  
Once it finally stirs, only to shake the rain off of its antique grey clown suit, much like a wet dog would shake water out of its fur, she nearly jumps from the suddenness of its movements. A dismissive sneer disappears from its face as fast as it emerged, so quick she thinks she must've imagined it. When its yellow eyes lock with hers, profound and menacing, she understands it expects her to speak.   
  
“As you know...” she starts, waiting for the right words to come to her. “I need your help.”   
  
“Your parents are dead,” it speaks, matter-of-factly. Fran can't help but flinch at its words.   
  
“Yes.”   
  
“Brutally murdered,” it nods its white face. The clown make-up on its face catches her eye and this time around she has the time to admire the complexity of it, unlike the day before. For a fleeting moment she wonders if it really is make-up, or if the paleness is etched into all of its skin.   
  
“They were,” she replies, soft spoken. “I know you know who did it.”   
  
The clown presses its back into her dining chair, then crosses its long legs over one another and observes her in silence.   
  
“Who killed my parents. You do know, don't you?” her voice wavers.   
  
“I thought you said you knew I knew.”   
  
It smiles again, in its own vile and arrogant way. Its head is slightly cocked to the side, watching her squirm with an animalistic, predatory gaze. It's toying with her.   
  
“Yes. You know.”   
  
When it uncrosses then crosses its legs again, the absurdity of the situation really dawns on her. Not only was there a child killer sitting in her kitchen, said child killer nearly strangled her to death not even twenty-four hours ago.   
  
“Hmm,” it goes, neither confirming or denying her words, but with all that she knows, it doesn't have to. Her research has been extensive and detailed enough to know that the sewer monster can do the unexplainable. It betrayed itself by mentioning the death of her parents, and yesterday, it used her own thoughts against her. Mindreading is an ability it possesses, but it is far from Its only supernatural skill. She is certain It uses these tactics to lure in its unsuspecting prey, like how it used mindreading to trap Billy.   
  
She shivers. Was it really only yesterday?   
The soreness of her throat irrefutably proves it was.   
  
“Why are you here?” there are a million questions running through her mind, but she decides to settle for the obvious one. Why is it in her home? Did it change its mind? Did it decide to rid itself of her once and for all?   
  
“Fran,” it starts, the f soft like honey and the r hard like glass. Her name, the only gift her parents were able to leave her with, sounds foreign to her when the eldritch being lets it slip off of its tongue. Her name sounds like it doesn't belong to her, like a secret she just got let in on when it pronounces it. She can't decide if it is unnerving or flattering.   
  
“I can feel you ache from every corner of this pathetic little town.”   
  
It takes a moment for the words to register in her mind.   
  
“ _Ache_?”   
  
“Your ache for revenge infiltrates my senses like the sickly-sweet stench of a wasted, rotting corpse,” it continues, as if it hadn't heard her. Perhaps it really hadn't but most likely it measured the weight of her perplexity and found it to be insignificant.   
  
“Your pathetic longing for justice hums through my sewers, a constant, nagging droning that never goes,” she feels oddly inclined to apologize, the way the sewer monster is narrowing its yellow eyes at her. “It is heavy and sits on me like a layer I cannot scrape off.”   
  
She pulls her knees up, and wraps her arms tightly around her sweatpants-clad legs, cold humiliation filling up her chest until it aches. So, it perceives her feelings as strongly as she did. She unknowingly manifested, or perhaps projected, her strongest desires onto It; making the murderer of her parents pay. The strength of her emotions has infiltrated its senses to the point where he can constantly smell and hear her. She wonders if it was able to sense her as soon as it woke up from its slumber. God, this is so fucked.   
  
With no regard for her obvious distress, it continues.   
  
“Until the day before this one. The closer you come, the less I sense you. I get clean.”   
  
The being's words take their time conveying their meaning, and a silence hangs thickly between the monster and the woman.   
  
“You don't smell me, uh, right now?” she asks, wondering if perhaps this is the oddest sentence that has ever come out of her mouth.   
  
“I smell _you_ , little lamb. But the desperation is away,” Fran hums in response, absentmindedly putting her feet back on the vinyl floor.   
  
“Why?” she asks. “Why is it gone?”   
  
“I don't have an answer.”   
  
“So much for your supernatural powers, then. I thought you were supposed to be all knowing,” regret fills her as fast as the words leave her mouth. Having friendly banter with a being that probably has babies for a light snack isn't one of her brightest moves.   
  
“So, now what?” she quickly asks, not giving it the time to respond to her mindless comment.   
  
“I want to get rid of it,” It states. Images of the murderous clown ripping her head clean off of her body with its teeth fight for the light of day in her mind. A lump comes to sit viscously in her throat. Lost in thought, her fingers trail towards the being's teeth dangling from her neck.   
  
“Yeah,” she says. She can understand.   
  
“And you want him gone," it sounds annoyed with her and its wide eyes drift away from her face. Fran realizes it probably never had a conversation with a human, with prey, that lasted more than a few seconds and that didn't inevitably end in the human's death. Perhaps she should give it a break, it wasn't used to this.   
  
God. Perhaps she should give the killing shapeshifter a break for not being a pro at holding a conversation. She feels like she is losing her damned mind.   
  
“I want justice for what he did to my parents. I want answers,” she agrees, her heartbeat picking up in her chest. So, it had been a man that had killed her parents. The clown provided her with more information than she ever figured out on her own. She had never found any leads plus she only had a few photos of her parents to go off of. The foster system doesn't want children to get hung up on their deceased relatives, so there was never an opportunity to ask if anyone knew anything.   
  
Fantasies of a life with both parents often lingered in her head as a child, her as a wide-eyed all-American girl, and them, together, happy and proud of her. They would own a big house and have big breakfasts every Sunday morning where she could eat whatever she wanted, how much she wanted. In her fantasies, she would be friends with the girls at school who bullied her in her daily life, and she'd be the opposite of lonely and blissfully ignorant to others people their pain, because she would be a completely different person than she was in real life, and thus, she'd be happy.   
  
But fantasies weren't real and she had since come a long way to accept that.   
  
“When you find him,” the clown's voice shakes her out of her thoughts.   
  
“I kill him,” she finishes its unspoken question. “Myself. With my bare hands, if I have to.”   
  
The clown nods, and a foul grin creeps upon its face, buckteeth digging slightly into its bottom lip.   
  
“Does that make you any better than him, little lamb?”   
  
The shapeshifter's clown form doesn't ask because it cares for the state of her soul. It asks because it enjoys toying with her. She frowns.   
  
“I don't need you to give me a lesson in morals, clown,” she bites back.   
  
It smiles like it knows more than she does, and God, it infuriates her because it does know more than she does. Then, it stretches its long limbs like a sunbathing cat and slides off of its chair. It disappears under the dining table only to resurface on the other side, limbs tangled and twisted. Nausea rises in her throat at the sight of the unnatural placement of its limbs, and she vaguely wonders if the clown doesn't hurt itself.   
  
When it untangles itself like a complicated game of Twister and moves towards her bathroom, she realizes it's intending to disappear right under her nose.   
  
“Wait!” she calls to the clown, hurrying after it. It slows down, but it doesn't bother to face her.   
  
“What should I call you?” she asks, a blush rising on her cheeks. She has been calling the shapeshifter ‘it’ in her head all this time, not sure if it even has a name.   
  
“Oh, I don't know," it drawls maliciously, finally turning to face her, but only the top half of its body, Its feet still rooted to the ground. Its yellow eyes shine somewhere between playful and dangerous. “I have many names.”   
  
“Just give me one,” she says. “Your favorite one.”   
  
It scoffs at her, but its expression remains unchanged.   
  
“Pennywise, the dancing clown,” the bells she heard a few days ago in the small park near her house fill her ears again, and she nods. So, not an illusion her mind conjured up after all.   
  
“Nice to meet you, Pennywise,” she smiles, shaking its gloved hand that was clamped around her neck only yesterday.   
  
“And you, little lamb,” it says, it's genuity questionable.   
  
“So... You're not going to kill me?”   
  
“You're not completely useless,” it's short, but clear answer sounds, and then, it disappears right in front of her eyes.   
  
Fine, she thinks. She'll take it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a short chapter, but lots of Pennywise! Fran is easily becoming the favorite main character I've ever written. I make a point out of NOT describing her physical traits so everyone can imagine her how they like. Feedback makes me :)
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr if you like: @/terror-slut


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